Coming to Terms

We’re talking about truth here,
reduced to mathematical terms,
concentrated to a base element
to extract as needed
to change the nature of things.
When was the last time you drank
a concentrate straight?

So the first one is sitting
on the table between us
while we consider the possibility
of a corollary.
I’m fully prepared to argue
mathematical parts of speech–
corollary, axiom, necessary condition–
anything but admit
I know it,
and lay it down too.

You’re struggling;
I let you.
but intuition takes hold
and there you are
a probable estimate
of the next truth in hand.

How dare you,
with such thin data,
pronounce hypothesis and conclusion
in the same breath
and be right,
when I have spent 30 years
collecting like data,
systematically throwing it away
to ensure
I am wrong.